Controversy

10 Interesting Bitcoin Facts You Should Know

1. Bitcoin creator, Satoshi Nakamoto, is still a mystery figure

Satoshi Nakamoto is the name used by the person who designed bitcoin
but there’s still doubt about the real identity. Over the years, many
people have been linked with the same, including Nick Szabo, Dorian
Nakamoto, Hal Finney, Craig Steven Wright, and others. Some people
consider Nakamoto might be a team of people. As of May 2017, Nakamoto is
believed to own about 1 million bitcoins with a worth of more than $2
billion.

2. Bitcoins are limited in number

You might’ve heard about bitcoin mining, the process using which
bitcoins are generated digitally. So, does this mean there could be an
infinite number of bitcoins? That’s not the case. A pre-defined schedule
has limited the number of bitcoins. They are slowly approaching a total
of 21 million and the mining process is getting harder with each
passing day.

3. It’s impossible to know the sender/receiver details

Bitcoin addresses are a long string of 34 alphanumeric characters.
Using that address, it’s impossible to tell the recipient. Probably,
this is the reason why most of the illegal transactions are carried out
using bitcoins. To protect the privacy even further, most wallet
programs assign the users a portfolio ID, which is also used as a
username.

4. Pizza was the first thing (good) purchased using bitcoin

After the first bitcoin transaction took place between Satoshi and
Hal Finney in 2009, the first recorded purchase was made for buying
pizza worth $25. To do so, 10,000 bitcoins were spent.

5. Bitcoin network is much powerful than supercomputers

According to the experts, Bitcoin networks has a computing power
of 2,046,364 Pflop/s. This is my personal favorite fact about bitcoin.
If you go ahead and combine the computing power of the 500 most powerful
supercomputers, you’ll get a combined fever of 274 Pflop/s.

6. Bitcoin has been sent into outer space

In 2016, Genesis Mining, a bitcoin cloud mining provider, set bitcoin
to space. This was done using a 3D bitcoin model and a bitcoin paper
wallet, which were tied to a weather balloon. The whole journey was
recorded using a GoPro focused on the model and wallet. Once the weather
balloon reached a height of 20 kilometers, the ground team made the
transaction to paper wallet. Another transfer was made to the wallet
once it achieved the maximum possible altitude of 34 kms.

7. A bitcoin transfer is irreversible

Transaction of bitcoin, a preferred currency involved in the
transaction of illegal goods, can not be reversed. Unlike popular
platforms like PayPal, you don’t get second chances while making a
transaction.

8. The FBI has one of the world’s largest bitcoin wallets

When the FBI shut down the operations of the Silk Road, it also
seized the owner’s assets. In that process, the FBI also became one of
the world’s wealthiest bitcoin owners, A report from the Wired magazine
claims that the FBI controls as much as $120 million.

9. Losing a bitcoin wallet means losing those bitcoins

Just like you save your money in your online bank accounts, your
bitcoins are saved in bitcoin wallet. It’s a highly secure storage
wallet. But, if you lose it, your bitcoins are lost forever. It’s also
impossible for any person to use your bitcoins from your wallet until
you give it to them. Also, if you have a bitcoin address, you can see
the number of bitcoins the owner has.

10. Bitcoin is highly volatile

Since its launch, in past one decade bitcoin has become one of the
most important phenomenon in the digital world. Its price has touched
thousands of dollars. However, the price keeps fluctuating and it
remains volatile. Predictions have also been made that bitcoin might
fall in the future if it follows the current path. This is because a
small number of people, about 10, control the majority of bitcoin. This
defeats the entire decentralized nature of currency.